


frequent company of strangers

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 11:55:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2692049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heero goes on a trip to search for himself and he finds Duo Maxwell and Trowa Barton.</p><p>AU. Mentions of child abuse and a gruesome death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	frequent company of strangers

**Author's Note:**

> I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little seesaw of the right throbs and the wrong. After rising, in town, to meet his appeal, I had at all events a couple of very bad days—found myself doubtful again, felt indeed sure I had made a mistake.  
> \- The Turn of the Screw, Henry James

There aren’t really blocks in London, it’s a common misconception that American writers make when they put the city in their books. No one says, just a few blocks that way, like they do in New York. The twisting alleys and streets that don’t make rigid, logical sense, are comforting to him. Heero grew up in the grid of New York and spent most of his teenage years traveling from Philadelphia, back to New York and then up to Boston. His family wasn’t migratory but there had been a juggling custody battle, among other things.

The thought of his past gives him a shiver, not out of fear or unease but because all his memories of the East Coast are _cold_. Cold winters in Boston. The cold air from the air conditioner during the summer in Philadelphia when his father had practically chained him to the desk in the basement to learn his maths and advanced physics. The chill of New York fall coupled with the bizarre Brooklyn insistence of not salting the sidewalks — so the cold of his ass on the ice when he inevitably tripped and fell.

Somehow, sensations ruled his memories more than distinct impressions. At twenty-five he couldn’t remember much about his childhood — not clearly — but those moments, like the cold, or the heat of his father’s open-handed strike against his cheek and the one time he had cradled the phone to his chest and whispered through to the help line — is it normal for your father to hit you with an iron, when he was twelve — he remembered those.

He does, though, thank his father with ironic bitterness for the dual citizenship to two countries that aren’t where he was born. His father was a London born Japanese immigrant and his mother had been — well, someone else. There were no pictures of her and he was sure she hadn’t died. Sometimes he recalled slips of information between childhood mementos of his studies. A book on India, a particular math problem, the debate on the God particle. Those had all been things that made his father curl his lip but say nothing.

Heero liked to imagine that it meant that his mother had left his father, because she couldn’t tolerate him. Heero’s relatives had certainly not wanted to be around the man either and as soon as Heero could he had moved out. And then, moved across the ocean.

He was only in London for a week or so, staying at Relena’s home in Muswell Hill, before traveling around a bit more. She had left the invitation open — for as long as he wanted, whenever he wanted. They were best friends, in a way. He was the one she called when her brother had died in a car accident, when her prom date had stood her up and when her father had been murdered. She was the one who wired him money when he had called her from a payphone behind a Pizza Hut and told her he couldn’t go home, but he needed a hotel room, he wasn’t afraid of his father but people kept asking about the bruises.

Heero loved her, in his own way. When a student at college had threatened to hurt her if she didn’t have sex with him Heero had beaten the student until he needed to take a year off, medical leave. Then he’d been expelled from college. Relena had joked that if they dated they would be beauty and the beast, or princess and the muscle. He didn’t mind, because it was their way of agreeing not to date. Their relationship was more complex and fruitful as friends.

And, she had seen him at his worst and he had seen her when she had been fanciful and naive and both did not want to revisit those memories.

It’s summer, just barely, and Heero decides to do the Circle line pub crawl. He doesn’t have anything better to do and Relena is going to see a show — a play about arguing parents or something. He has no idea why someone would want to watch parents argue when they could go to any place where parents were and listen, but Relena did love the theater.

He got off at Cannon Street, had a pint of something — whatever was on tap. They always laughed at his Americanisms, because nowhere in American served beer as pints. Then he got off a Mansion House. There were only three more stops on his circuit and he was well past drunk but college, the years after and several parties Relena had held, had given him skilled beer legs. A street vendor catches his attention.

“You, you, yes, come here.” She says, smiles, waves something at him.

He has no idea what it is. His drunken mind processes that it must be a trinket of some kind, but it’s _only_ like five quid and surely he can spare that? Which, he can, and in a few more seconds he has the thing tucked away in his pocket and he’s heading for the next pub on the circuit.

Heero doesn’t make it, though. Instead of entering he trips and his arm is caught by a stranger. Even as thoroughly drunk as he is he can tell the stranger is strong, strong enough to haul Heero up and out of the doorway. The stranger is taller than him and is younger than him, probably, by a few years.

“Hey there,” the stranger’s voice is deep though, soft and trustworthy. Heero kicks his drunken brain, mentally, for thinking that. Complacency was a good way to end up with a sore lip for missed chores, or a good way to end up dead. He learned those lessons well, when he was younger. “Looks like you probably don’t need to go in there.” The stranger carefully leads him down the street to a bench.

“I’m doing the circuit,” Heero says, he’s proud that his words don’t slur.

“You know, no one ever actually does the whole thing,” the stranger isn’t British, there’s another accent that isn’t American that drifts in and out of his voice though. “People usually just go until they can’t walk straight and then settle down. You’re completely gone, aren’t you?”

“I’m fine, I was walking just fine.”

“Just as fine as a fish drowning in wine,” the stranger agrees. Heero glares, but his vision swims a little. The stranger _is_ younger than him and either an obsessive shaver or he hasn’t had any facial hair grow in yet. “Stay here a moment, will you?”

Heero nods, dumbly, because why not? Now that he’s sitting down standing up again seems a lot like something he doesn’t want to do. He’ll need to head back to Relena’s in under the hour though, since the underground stops running, eventually.

The stranger comes back with a sourdough roll, an orange, a bottle of water. He offers the bread first, and his name, “You can call me Trowa, if you want.” Heero places the accent. French-something.

“Trois? I’m Heero Yuy.”

Trowa stifles his amusement and begins to peel the orange as Heero eagerly devours the bread.

“No, just Trowa. Someone else butchered the French long before your people had a go at it.”

“My people?”

“American, right? Don’t worry, I’ll get you sorted in no time, Heero.”

The bread is dry and he drinks the whole bottle of water after he eats it. Then he lays down on the bench and wonders when he became so drunk. He must have fallen asleep, because he wakes to the smell of oranges and finds that Trowa is dangling a piece above his face.

“I said I’d sort you, but it doesn’t mean you should just fall asleep on strangers.” 

“I’m going to regret this tomorrow,” Heero states. Trowa doesn’t affirm it, but he does feed Heero the orange slices, one by one.

By the time Heero’s head clears the underground has stopped running, he can tell because his watch says it’s past midnight. He’s laying on the bench, arm curled underneath him and his stomach is complaining that he drank too much without eating. There’s no sign of Trowa and even though Heero thinks he didn’t fall asleep again, it’s hard to tell, he had drunk more than he had during his 21st birthday. There’s no orange peels on the ground and even the bottle he drank from is missing. But his lips are sticky with sweetness and when he catches a cab back to Relena’s he’s certain the only reason he doesn’t vomit is because someone took care of him.

—

Relena tells him it’s an anklet, the thing he bought when so fantastically drunk he couldn’t tell if he made up the existence of Trowa or if someone had really hand-fed him oranges on a bench outside of a pub. It’s an odd thing, mostly woven wrong with little silver charms. There’s a series of dark brown splotches on the weave, almost a pattern and the charms are animals — a lion, a bird, a dolphin — it’s not the kind of thing he would buy at all. Despite that Heero winds it around his right ankle, under his sock.

He catches a bus to Wales, to the coast town of Aberystwyth. 

The further he gets from London the more the signs are in Welsh. Eventually the English part of the signs disappears completely and he feels completely lost. But the countryside is gorgeous, at least. He only stays for a few days, despite the fact it was a day long bus ride to get there. The people are nice, but it’s inoffensive beautiful and he gets antsy before too long.

On the way back to London he decides to get off the bus in Cardiff. Heero had meant to use this year to travel Europe, but instead kept circling back to Relena’s in London. It was nice to have the homebase but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something. The whole reason he had taken the year off — quit his job, moved out of his small apartment in Bath — was a romantic idea of soul-searching. Relena had encouraged it, because she knew he hadn’t ever cut himself free of obligations, even after moving away from the States. Just take a year, she had said, you deserve it. But now that he had taken the year all he did was itch to get back to work.

The hostel he found had individual rooms for only a few pounds more. Heero secured his things and then went down to the shared common area. It had a modified bar with drinks that could be put on the tab. He hadn’t ever stayed in a hostel with those kind of accommodations, but the common room was also showing a marathon of Jurassic Park movies and had several people his age hanging out.

He really didn’t hang out, much.

Somehow, though, he found himself in the company of a bright-eyed American who had just acquired a bit of a British roll to his speech — someone who had been here for a few months, at least then. Heero’s own English had never quite caught the Brit accent, even though he’d lived in England for a few years, now.

“So, there I was, right? Standing outside the University looking at the biggest and stupidest looking gold dome I’ve ever seen and I said it! Of course, naturally, there was a group of students behind me. Next thing I know I’m doing my speech, the one they invited me here for, and it’s to the _same group of students!_ ” It wasn’t a very funny story at all, but several people laugh. The American grins, whirls and spots Heero. “Sorry, we keeping you up? I know we’re a big group.”

He shakes his head, no.

“I’m Duo, Duo Maxwell. These are the boys — we’re what do you say. . .? Traveling lecturers.” It must be an in-joke, because the group laughs again. “Doing the rounds as we’re invited to famous Unis, it’s fun, but we always end up in the same place — around a bottle of booze.”

“Heero.” He offers.

“Japanese?” Duo asks, curious.

“American.” Heero cuts that thought in half, abruptly. 

They all settle down, eventually, to watch the movies. Duo never says what he’s lecturing about, but he knows a lot about dinosaurs. More than Heero. Duo talks about how he thinks it would be great if they redid the Jurassic Park movies but with feathered dinosaurs, because those are so cool. Heero wonders, idly, if Duo ever shuts up. But he also notices, at the end of the movie, that one of Duo’s companions leans over to touch Duo’s shoulder, reassurance, and how Duo went quiet when the credits rolled.

“Man, he loved that film.” Duo says, and then bids Heero goodnight. He heads to the group room and Heero goes back upstairs to his own room.

The latches to the rooms in the hostel were simple and Heero finds himself annoyed when for the third time that night someone rattles the handle and the door opens a thin fraction, only kept closed by the chain. When it happens for a fourth time Heero gets up and yanks the door open, intending to give a death glare to whoever is disturbing his sleep.

It’s Trowa, oddly enough. He looks exactly the same to Heero’s drunken memory, and Heero is sure that he’s wearing the same clothes, even. Trim stonewashed jeans, brown shoes, a green turtleneck and fashionable military-esque black coat. Trowa smiles.

“Sorry, wrong room,” he says.

“Trowa.”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in Cardiff?” Heero’s brow furrows. Trowa laughs, softly and leans in the doorway. 

“Maybe I was looking for you.”

There’s something so ridiculous about the statement that Heero can’t even find it inviting. He just stares a little more. “Impossible.”

“I thought we had something special, the night at the pub, but you ran away,” Trowa shrugs. Heero doesn’t remember it that way, but he had been drunk. If anything, though, he remembers Trowa being the one to disappear first. “I meant to ask, do you like men?”

“Men.” Heero echoes. 

“Men, like me. Or men as in men in general.” Trowa clarifies, his voice is even but his eyes are dancing.

“Yes.” Is the honest response. For some reason Trowa looks relieved.

“Good, have a great night, Heero.” Then he walks down the hallway. Heero only thinks to go after him after Trowa rounds the corner. In just his boxers Heero strides after him, a little anxiously. What had that been about? But he rounds the corner to nothing but an empty hallway and another corner.

Heero walks down the hallway a little more to a dead end where the bathroom is. The bathroom door swings open and Duo Maxwell walks out.

“Did he go by this way?” Heero asks.

“Huh?” Duo asks, sleep pulling his features into confusion and wariness.

“Nevermind.” Heero returns to his room. It seemed unlikely, though, that he would have imagined two meetings with Trowa.

—

Heero decides to go to France, after he returns from Wales. He spends two days at Relena’s and then catches the short flight to Paris. He doesn’t stay in Paris, though, choosing instead takes the bus and then a night cab to Figeac. The bed and breakfast he stays at is quaint, they don’t ask questions, it’s comfortable.

A few days later he travels to northern France, because there is a cheap room for let he can stay at for the month.

His landlord is a middle-aged woman who grows sugar beets and has had the same car for the past twenty-five years. She fixes him ham and pasta for dinner and tells him that the room he is renting used to be her brother’s. He doesn’t know what to say to that.

Heero offers to help her with the weeding, because after three days of quiet life in her house and he took to running for long stretches of time to keep occupied. She says she’ll take it off of his rent.

Pulling weeds hurts his back. He’s bent over in the dirt ripping one up when a long shadow falls over him. He thinks, it must be Trowa, and oddly when he stands up, it is.

Still in the jeans and coat, looking at the beets almost fondly.

“Stalking me?” Heero asks, almost in wonder.

“It’ll be easier if you bend with your knees,” Trowa says, instead. He crouches down, runs his fingers through the soil and grabs a weed, then levers up with his shoulder. Once he’s pulled the weed free he stands, flexing his knees. “See?”

“How did you get here?”

“There are three things I won’t answer, Heero. One, is why or how I got somewhere. The second is where I came from.”

“And the third?”

“I won’t tell you until we get there, that makes it more fun, right?” Heero can’t help but be intrigued. There’s an odd mystery that hangs around Trowa, like a half-forgotten dream. “Are you staying in France long?”

“I don’t know, I’m letting my feet take me wherever.”

Trowa looks thoughtful. “You should go to Scotland, next.”

“Why Scotland?”

“Because I’ll meet you there,” Trowa smirks and it’s definitely inviting. He tosses the weed into the pile Heero had started, “It would feel weird to do more here. Did you know her brother has been missing for ten years?”

“She didn’t say,” Heero wonders again how old Trowa is. Standing in the afternoon light he could be a teenager, but Heero swears that the last time he saw Trowa he looked more like mid-twenties. It could be a trick of the light and the way that Trowa’s hair always seems to cover half of his face.

“Don’t ask her about it, I think it’s harder on people when their loved ones disappear.” Trowa looks so painfully honest that Heero feels compelled to contribute.

“I don’t know much about family.”

“I only learned recently,” Trowa admits. “But you don’t want to anger your landlord, she might take it out on you financially. Or maybe just the old fashioned way.” He mimics drawing a knife across his throat. Heero thinks it’s funny, even though it probably isn’t. They seem to share the same gallows humor.

“Scotland.” Heero finally says.

“Scotland.” Trowa agrees. “See you there.”

—

The flight from Paris to London and then the consequent train from London to Edinburgh is dizzying and makes Heero feel a little sick. Or maybe it’s the fact that he went from drifting aimlessly to following the advice of a guy that he kept trying to seem to want to convince himself didn’t exist.

He rents a hotel room in an old bank that was converted to a pub-slash-hotel. He realizes that Trowa didn’t say when to be in Scotland, nor exactly what city, so Heero decides to sight-see a little.

The tour of the castle is more boring than expected, but the view over the city is amazing. He spends a lot of time in bookstores, museums and in the small little alleys that strife up and down the steep hills in Edinburgh.

And then, he meets Duo Maxwell for brunch by accident. Duo looks more unsettled than the last time that Heero saw him. There’s a tightness to the man’s smile that looked a lot like grief. But Duo greets him with a smile and — “It was Hero, right?”

“Heero,” he corrects. The brunch place is small and they ended up sharing a table and the waitress was apologetic but they both assure her it’s fine. Duo cracks that they’re American, so they don’t have the same kind of stiff sensibilities as the English. Heero’s not sure she finds it very funny.

“Fancy meeting you here again,” Duo says.

“I’m just traveling around,” Heero shrugs. He can’t really tell Duo he went to Scotland to hopefully meet up again with an enigmatic green-eyed stranger, could he. “I still have eight months of leave left.”

“I’m traveling too, the lecture circuit got old,” Duo winks. Heero doesn’t know what that means.

They talk about a lot of meaningless things. Duo tells him a bit about the history of the castle and about James Joyce. Heero has to counter with what he knows about light refraction and architecture and how he’s impressed by ancient buildings because they lacked the planning tools and machines they have now. Duo thinks that’s cool and asks about his job, the one he quit.

Heero admits that he finds building offices for big companies less fulfilling than planning houses for families. He hasn’t told anyone but Relena that, but Duo is very easy to talk to. Duo grins and tells Heero a story about rabbits. Which makes no sense, but it fills the time while they eat waffles and eggs and coffee.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Duo asks, suddenly.

“Not really,” Heero replies. “I believe in attraction at first sight, but you need to know someone to love them. And to know when you don’t love them.”

“Yeah,” Duo agrees. “It’s been real, we should do this again, sometime. Here.” Duo scrawls down his number on a napkin, “It’s a pay as you go Orange plan, so don’t go crazy with power.”

“I won’t,” Heero promises. Duo smiles again, broad and it’s a very likable smile. They bicker a bit about the tip, because Heero knows that the expected tip is small but Duo wants to be a careless American tourist and Heero finally just lets him because it isn’t as if it’s any skin off of his back. They part ways.

Heero does another loop of the city nearest the castle. He walks off the breakfast and it’s almost sunset before he runs into Trowa.

“Hey,” Trowa says, he looks happy.

“Hey,” Heero answers. They stand in silence and then Trowa offers his a hand. Heero takes it, eagerly, and soon Trowa is tugging him down the stairs by the museum under the castle. He leads Heero to a small, dark, secret place just barely illuminated by the street lights that come on as the sun sinks below the horizon. It’s intimately private.

“I walked by the window, where you had brunch,” Trowa grins, “You looked like you were having fun.”

“I met him in Cardiff, at the same hostel you were at.” 

“Who is he?”

“Duo Maxwell. He talks a lot.”

Trowa chuckles, squeezes Heero’s hand. “Wait one moment.”

They sit in silence and then Heero sees what Trowa wanted him to wait for. A group of students, probably, walk out onto the field. They can’t see Trowa and Heero, who are obscured by the overhang. The students spread out and start spinning fire.

“It’s fire poi.” Trowa’s voice is quiet against Heero’s ear. “They’re one of the best groups in the UK.”

It’s entrancing and odd and not what he expected and Heero enjoys it immensely. He and Trowa stay together under the overhang until the students stop practicing and pack up to head in for the night. It’s grown chill, with a slight breeze, but standing near Trowa has kept Heero warm.

“They’re shows cost a good forty quid,” Trowa says, smugly, “So to get one for free is worth the wait.”

“Do you know them?”

“Hm, who knows.”

Another of Trowa’s mysteries.

“Will you be in Scotland long?” Heero asks. He’s reluctant to move away from Trowa.

“Why?” Trowa’s expression is veiled by the darkness, by his fringe, by the way his green eyes have slid partway shut and his mouth curves into a delicate smile. Heero thinks there is something unsure in it, but he can’t tell for sure.

“We could have brunch.”

Something flickers on Trowa’s face.

“I think you should have brunch with that guy again, then we can meet for dinner.” He negotiates. Heero isn’t sure that’s a good idea, but it seems if he says the wrong thing Trowa will vanish, or say he’s leaving Scotland. Heero is unused to wanting things — to wanting to spend time with people. He even only has an easy existence with Relena that isn’t plagued by longing, but rather familiarity. He swallows. “I’m not a morning person.” Trowa adds.

“All right.” Heero agrees.

He has brunch with Duo for the rest of the week. He learns a lot about Duo. Duo has three degrees, even though he’s Heero’s age. He’s a bit of a prodigy, but right now he’s an aimless prodigy. He specializes in casino theories and has a small fortune he made off of any card game at the casino. He’s been banned from more casinos than Heero has ever been into. They are the same age. Duo likes to smile and be happy but if Heero watches closely he’ll see Duo’s expression snap shut or something awful and mournful sit on his face. It’s painful.

Heero tells Duo some about himself. He skirts a lot of it. He never mentions Trowa.

In the evenings and nights he meets with Trowa and Trowa always shows him some private part of the city. A cafe that is only open from the hours of 10pm to 3am. The sunrise from the castle walls — which is probably illegal but Trowa climbed up and leaned over to pull Heero over the barrier too. Heero learns that Trowa knows how to dance — both formal ballroom and also casual club. They never go to a club but one evening it rains and Trowa shrugs out of his ever-present coat and they dance in the rain and it’s slippery and they both keep laughing because they’re both clumsy and it’s kind of stupid.

“I’ll be in Belfast, next,” Trowa tells him, hurriedly. Heero commits it to memory.

The next morning Heero tells Duo that he’s headed to Belfast. Duo stares at him as if he’s seen a ghost.

“Holy shit.” Duo laughs then. “I’m going there too. Maybe we should travel together. Are you planning on ferrying or flying?”

“Flying, it’s cheaper.”

“Me too.”

Heero finds Duo a good travel companion. Duo handles a lot of the chaos of an airport with practiced ease and he slides enough jokes in as padding that Heero’s glare at the security doesn’t even get him double searched, like it normally does. They don’t have seats next to each other on the plane, but Duo looks back at him and makes gestures the entire flight. Heero has to hold in his laughter.

“Why Belfast?” Duo asks when they retrieve their luggage.

“I felt like it,” Heero shrugs. The meetings with Trowa were never proclaimed to be secret, but he can’t bring himself to mention them. It seems like a betrayal. “How about you?”

The painful grieving crosses Duo’s face again. “Old memories. Every two to three years i try to do this — sometimes it’s pretty quick. London, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin, Dunkirk and then back to London. I’ve been doing it since I was a teen.”

Around ten years, then.

“That’s a long trip.” 

“It’s worth it.” Duo immediately says.

—

Heero only sees Trowa once in Belfast. He spends most of his time with Duo, they travel the city and Duo tells him about the history, as he always does. He learns that Duo grew up in the UK, for a while, but went to college in America and he was American born. Heero shares that Relena lives in London.

Trowa takes Heero on the Belfast Eye, so they can see the city from above. Heero notices that the booth only charges them for one ticket and Trowa smirks and says _Lucky break._ Trowa doesn’t talk about the history of the city, instead he tells Heero about cars.

Heero has never been interested in cars, but Trowa explains the difference between makes and models, the history of some of the American companies, he talks a bit about racing, too. Street racing. He then apologizes and says he can’t stay long, but he’ll try to see Heero when he can.

—

Duo invited Heero to Dublin with him, so Heero goes. It’s different from Belfast in remarkable ways. There was a gloom in Belfast — Duo had pointed out the old militia murals that were still being painted over — that isn’t in Dublin, at least that he can see. They have dinner at a fancy Italian place.

“I usually travel alone, sorry if I’m bad company,” Duo stretches. “But you had such a lost puppy look.”

“What.”

“A lost puppy look.”

“I do not have a lost puppy look.”

“Don’t take it the wrong way, there’s nothing wrong with being a stray. You kind of remind me of a guy,” Duo shrugs, “Though, he was more of the take in strays type, not the being one.”

“It sounds like an insult.”

“I was a stray once,” Duo grins. “But he took me in and set me straight — well, straight as I can be.” It’s a joke and one that Heero gets, unlike a lot of Duo’s eccentric humor.

“I’m accomplished, this is just a vacation.” Heero doesn’t know why he’s defending himself. He frowns intensely and thinks he could be drunk, but they only split the bottle of wine and he’s had much more than that before and it didn’t mess with his clarity of thought.

“People don’t take year long vacations when they know what they want,” Duo snorts. “Look, don’t freak out or get all defensive. When I was a kid, like ten years ago, you know? I was into some bad shit and — thought I’d Romeo my way out of it but not in the tragic way, just lift yourself up with love way. Didn’t work out and I went through a hard, rough time. I mean, I was kind of a stray before that, but that’s how life is. Now, you’re like a lot older than I was but it just means you have more resources.”

“I don’t need your advice, Duo.”

“I know, that’s why I’m giving it.”

“. . . I’m working on what I want.” Heero finally grinds out. He isn’t the type to lie, but it’s awkward to say and even as he hears the words come out of his mouth he flinches. Duo smiles, though, a broad grin that is one part encouragement and one part understanding.

“It’s tough, innit? I thought I had what I wanted, back then, but now I’ve got to keep on living and it’s hard.”

“Is that why you travel like this?”

“One of the reasons, yeah.”

Duo invites Heero back to his room, after dinner. Heero thinks about looking for Trowa, but in the gloom of Dublin’s street lamps Duo’s smile is intoxicating. He accepts. Duo practically races up the stairs to his hotel room and Heero follows at a more sedate pace.

They don’t kiss, but they fuck and they fuck again. Heero keeps his socks on and Duo mocks himf or it. Duo laughs a lot during sex and at first Heero thinks he’s done something wrong — Duo isn’t his first, but Heero has more experience with hurried sex behind bleachers or hidden away, furtive snippets of pleasure, he can’t remember the last time he had sex in a bedroom. But it turns out that Duo just laughs, maybe because he’s enjoying it.

Heero likes the way Duo throws his head back just before orgasm, exposing his neck so Heero can kiss it and mark the skin there. He’s mystified by the way that Duo counts in French, during sex, or the other French things Duo says during sex that Heero doesn’t understand. But he must have his own quirks, he just doesn’t think of them.

He thinks to ask Duo about them, later, but instead they fuck a third time and fall asleep in an exhausted heap in the sheets.

—

It’s raining. It’s raining something awful. Ireland is very wet and very cold and Heero has grown to hate it, a little. He was heading back to his hotel room when the sky opened up and the rain came down so heavily that he lost his way.

He ducks under an overhang and huddles, refusing to shiver and instead glowers at the weather. He thinks of Trowa, oranges and Duo’s neck. Almost immediately he feels something warm settle around his shoulders — Trowa’s coat.

“Shite weather, huh?” Trowa asks.

“That’s why it’s the Emerald Isle.” Heero intones, masking his disgust with flatness. Trowa smirks and hugs Heero, adding his body warmth to the coat. Heero can’t help but notice that Trowa is completely dry.

They stay like that for a while, until the rain starts to let up.

“Wear my jacket, you’ll catch cold.” Trowa murmurs, slowly letting go of Heero. “We could meet for lunch, tomorrow. I know a place.”

They make lunch plans, Heero returns to his hotel room. He hangs the wet coat in the bathroom, he’ll return it to Trowa the next day.

Since he’s an early riser, Heero investigates the gift shops near the hotel before heading back to take a shower and dress before lunch. He had hoped to find some stupid trinket to buy as a gift but the only things they had with personality were name plaques and he was pretty certain there wouldn’t be a ‘Trowa’ among them.

The coat isn’t in the bathroom, and there isn’t even a puddle under where he hung it. But Heero is running late, then, the dissatisfaction over souvenirs cost him too much time. He was going to stop by the front desk to inquire, but a large group was checking in. He’d just have to apologize to Trowa and bring it to him another day.

Trowa meets him with sandwiches and a bottle of wine. “I thought we’d change plans, since the weather is nice.” He says and leads Heero into a little hidden part of the city where they can eat and overlook people walking down the street.

“Will you be in Dunkirk, next?” Heero asks. Trowa’s lips quirk.

“Do you want me to be?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I like you, I thought you liked me.” Heero isn’t defensive, but the possibility remains that he might have misread Trowa. “Come back to my room, after lunch, with me.”

“I won’t.” Trowa smiles, though. “I do like you. I’ll see you in Dunkirk.”

Heero yells at the front desk about the coat. The desk worker assures him that his room hadn’t been touched, maybe he misplaced it. She also says, quietly, that when he came back last night he hadn’t been wearing a coat.

—

“I used to race cars,” Duo says. They’re on the beach, but the ocean and the sand in Dunkirk is cold. Heero watches clams squirt through the sand and watches Duo wiggle his toes after them, half-heartedly digging. “I mean, I also used to steal them.”

“They must have gotten harder to hotwire, over time,” Heero replies. He remembers what Trowa said. “The nineties must have been good years to steal cars.”

Duo is so surprised he laughs but it’s a broken excited noise. He laughs for a full five minutes until he’s gasping and doubled over and Heero doesn’t know what he said.

“ — I know a guy who used to say that.” Duo finally chokes out. “In the same way you just did, totally deadpan. Funniest shit. Used to be the funniest shit.”

“He doesn’t say it anymore?” Heero asks.

“Pretty sure he’s dead,” Duo says, softly. “I don’t know for sure, but there’s no way that guy would just disappear like that.”

Heero thinks Duo sounds sad, even though there’s a very fond smile playing on his lips.

“You were close, then?” 

“Heero, bud, you gotta get better at reading between the lines during conversations like this.” Duo’s smile is a closed one. Heero does know that look. It means that Duo won’t say anymore, not because he’s being secretive but because he doesn’t like being upset anymore than Heero likes upsetting him.

“Should we get a shovel?” Heero changes the subject, so Duo’s smile won’t be so awful. There is a vendor down the way that sells tourists shovels for an outrageous amount. 

“A shovel? Are we little girls or are we _men!_ Get down here and get your hands dirty, Heero Yuy!” Duo’s demeanor flips, like the lights going on in an empty house, and he laughs and digs with his hand and tugs at Heero until he joins in. It’s frantic and mostly fruitless but at least they get a few clams out of it and Duo’s mood stays buoyant for the rest of the time that they’re on the beach.

—

Heero almost gets hit by a car, in Dunkirk. The taxicab zips around the corner and runs over the lip of the sidewalk and Heero can feel the car’s mirror brush against his shirt. The only thing that saved him was a gentle pressure on his chest, like an arm pulling him backwards.

But no one was there.

—

Duo gets fantastically drunk, the day before they leave Dunkirk for London. He takes Heero to a small lounge that serves absinthe and drinks his way through the menu.

“When i was eighteen I almost died.” Duo shares in a hushed tone that isn’t actually quiet but it’s something that a drunk person might think was quiet. “I went for a swim in a lake after a six pack and I almost drowned but someone pulled me out.”

“I almost died when I was sixteen.” Heero offers.

Duo stares.

Heero stares back.

“And?” Duo finally prompts, sways in his seat. Heero wonders if Duo will remember this the next day. He hopes not.

“My father taught me how to defuse a bomb.” He starts, slowly. “I didn’t learn fast enough.” He shows Duo the scar on his right hand, on the palm that was suspiciously missing all the creases that normally made up the skin there.

“Holy shit, your dad is an asshole!” Duo yells. Heero tries to shush him but he’s also drunk, not that drunk, but drunk enough that his fingers just catch on Duo’s hair and his mouth and the bartender gives them A Look.

“I wanted to elope, when I was younger,” Duo shares. “This guy — god, this guy, Heero. I loved him so fucking much. He was kind of quiet, but had a real morbid sense of humor. The kind of guy who would joke about death and taxes being inaccurate the only thing that was actually inevitable was death because tax evasion was soooo en vogue. Get it? We were going to elope. My family was conservative and we were really just kids, but we were so in love. I thought he made the sun fucking rise. I told him too — I told him one night that if he died the world would stop turning. He laughed and said that he’d always wanted to cause the apocalypse. What a — an asshole, really. What an asshole.”

Heero orders them more drinks.

“We had to run away. I mean, we were going to have to run away if we wanted to get married. Once his mom caught us making out in the back of her car — shitty car. Worst place to make out, he was too tall for the backseat to work out for us — anyway, even then. When we were kids. I used to think he wore cologne but then recently — did you read? Harvard or whoever put out that study that we can smell our mates like animals. Like monkeys, so maybe it was just like. . . soulmate scent, isn’t that kind of gross?” Duo drinks whatever Heero ordered without looking at it. “Anyway. She shut the car door on his face, repeatedly. Musta. . . been common, he didn’t seem too upset but I told him we couldn’t invite her to the wedding.”

“Duo.” Heero’s not sure he wants to hear it. Something is eating away at the back of his mind as Duo talks, something he doesn’t want to think about.

“We did this trip,” Duo whispers, like saying it too loudly would irrevocably change something, “Because — he was a French student, I mean from France at the American School in London. Temporary living and all. When we got back to London, we did laundry at our parents’ places, isn’t that funny? But figured we’d milk them for all they got before we left.”

“You don’t have to tell me this.” Heero interrupts, again. That sense of dread doesn’t stop building. He feels sick.

“We were supposed to meet at Euston. I was late by two hours. I fucking misplaced my Oyster card and I was late and when I got there he wasn’t there. I waited the whole afternoon and he wasn’t fucking there. I thought he stood me up but later his mom — what an awful woman — came ‘round to my house and accused me of kidnapping. Turns out — turns out he just disappeared.” Duo groans, reaches for his empty glass and drinks from it only to find there’s no more alcohol. “Heero, we’re empty, we need more booze.”

“What — was his name?” Heero asks.

“Maybe we should do shots, I’m tired of cocktails.”

“Duo, what was his name.”

“Does it matter?” Duo laughs, but it’s close to a sob. “Ten years ago, Heero. He’s been gone for ten years and I still do this stupid trip hoping to catch sight of him even though he’s probably dead.”

“His name. Please.” Heero whispers, now but he already knows.

“Trowa. Trowa Barton.” Duo says mournfully into his empty glass.

Heero gets up, stumbles to the bathroom. He empties his stomach and then dry heaves across the toilet. A few seconds later Duo bursts into the bathroom after him.

“Shit — Heero, are you okay? Hey, buddy, don’t curl your fingers around the bowl like that, that’s nasty, here — “ Duo brushes his bangs back, soothes at his cheeks and face and gets a damp paper towel. He’s uncoordinated but careful and they clean up the mess but Heero stays crouched by the toilet.

“I — Duo.” Heero doesn’t know what to say. “I met him.”

Duo stiffens. His hands shake against Heero’s face. “What.”

“Trowa — I’ve met him, in these cities. He told me — the line about the cars — “

“Shut the fuck up,” Duo hisses.

“In Edinburgh, it’s why we had brunch together so much — he suggested it and — “

Duo’s fists hit him across the chest. Not hard punching, but the gentle rhythm of someone who is too drunk and too hysterical to make any damage. Heero doesn’t know what to do so he holds Duo on the bathroom floor until the manager comes in and asks them to leave.

—

Duo is asleep when Heero goes to the roof of the hotel. He doesn’t know why he does but as soon as he spots Trowa, sitting on the edge, he isn’t worried about the compulsion. Trowa is wearing the same clothes as always — down to the coat.

“Trowa.”

“Hey,” he says.

“You should speak with Duo.” Heero crosses his arms.

“He needs to get over me,” Trowa says, almost flippantly, but there’s a tension in his movements that Heero hasn’t seen before. “I can’t change the past.”

“Why did you walk out on him?”

That makes Trowa laugh, but it’s an echo of Duo’s hysterical broken laugh and Heero flinches.

“I didn’t.”

They stare at each other in the night. Trowa’s eyes track down Heero’s face and settle on his right ankle. Heero follows the gaze and then lifts his pants leg, the anklet he bought in London is still wrapped around his flesh there, a thin line under the fabric of his sock.

“. . . this was yours.” Heero says.

“Yeah,” Trowa shrugs. “I’m glad it was you who decided to buy it, though.”

“You’re dead.” 

“Yeah.”

Heero inhales sharply. It makes a kind of twisted perfect sense. The way that he couldn’t remember if Trowa had existed at first. The way Trowa showed up whenever, wherever he was. The cryptic comments.

It didn’t change the fact that Heero wanted him, though. And that sat in his heart like a piece of shrapnel.

“What happened?”

“You need to take care of Duo.” Trowa is firm, almost desperately so. “I want you to promise me that you will.”

“I can’t.”

“Please.”

“It was you that I wanted.”

Trowa’s expression breaks a little. “Don’t say that, I didn’t meant for that to happen. You were supposed to fall for him.” Heero realizes that Trowa had been trying to set him and Duo up. Every place they had visited was meant to be a trial date, every conversation was meant to help him with Duo. Everything. His cheeks burn with shame — the humiliation of being used and the flush of a rejection.

“Please.” Trowa says again. “And then you should burn it.”

The anklet.

“Will you disappear, if I do?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t do it.”

Trowa curls up a little, he hugs his knees to his chest. “Please, Heero.”

“No.”

Trowa doesn’t say anything else, then, just fades from sight right before Heero’s eyes. Heero lets himself stand on the roof a while longer, before he goes back inside, back down to the room where Duo was sleeping and climbs in bed with him. He arranges himself around Duo, to hold him, because there’s a deep ache in his chest and maybe the warmth will fill that, a little.

—

He doesn’t tell Duo until London. The trip from Dunkirk back to London was awful and neither of them spoke much but Heero isn’t sure how to say it until they’re back on British soil. He books a room for two, calls Relena to let her know he’s back but taking care of a friend and orders room service. Bread and oranges and he remembers from a conversation with Trowa — apple cider.

Duo winces when the food is brought in, but it’s clear these are some of his favorites.

“Do you recognize this?” Heero shows off the anklet. Duo crouches down to run his fingers over it.

“It’s — it’s a stupid thing. I won it at a stall, from the covered market in Oxford.” Duo’s fingers shake and his voice does too but he’s so fond, so very fond. “I told him it was as good as a wedding ring.”

“He wants me to burn it.”

Duo’s eyes snap up to his face.

“I — he’s a ghost.” Heero says lamely.

“You — “

“I’ll try to convince him — “

“Shut the fuck up.”

“Duo — “

“Don’t fuck with me.”

Instead of getting angry Duo’s voice flatlines. He’s so furious he can’t even show it. Heero stops making excuses, stops talking, he just reaches out for Duo and pulls him into a hard embrace and tries to squeeze understanding into him.

“If you’re not just — fucking with me for whatever sick — if — why hasn’t he — “ the words are wet and harsh. 

“He wants you to move on.”

“I’ve been trying for a decade. I don’t even know what happened — “ Duo’s breath catches. He laughs that hysterical laugh again but then it truly becomes sobs and he cries. He cries until his legs give out and Heero has to sink down to lower them both to the floor so they don’t fall. “I want to know at least that.”

“We’ll be together — he usually just shows up. When he does, we’ll both be here.” Heero promises. He hopes Trowa is somehow listening in.

— 

It’s just after 2am when Trowa does show up, in their hotel room. He looks as solid as ever and Heero still can’t believe that he’s dead. Duo is curled next to Heero, asleep again, because the crying wore him out.

“Trowa,” Heero says softly, puts a hand on Duo’s shoulder to wake him. Duo stirs, a little.

“Wait,” Trowa hurries to say, “I want to make a deal with you before you wake him up — “

“What deal?”

“If I tell you where my body is will you burn the anklet?” Trowa looks down at the carpet. “Then he can have closure, you could have a funeral for all I care but I — I’ve spent ten years watching him and watching whoever’s had that. . .” He trails off, but Heero can hear the unspoken words. Trowa can’t bear to watch anymore.

“All right,” Heero agrees. Then he shakes Duo’s shoulder. Duo sits up immediately, his mouth falls open and he lets out a small painful noise.

“Tro’ — “

“Hey,” Trowa says, so soft that Heero almost misses it. Duo doesn’t move closer to Trowa and Trowa doesn’t move closer to them. They just stare. Duo’s whole body shakes and he forces a very thin smile.

“You stood me up, you bastard.”

“Sorry Duo, I — I’m sorry.” Trowa’s voice is hoarse and he hugs himself, folds down on himself and Heero thinks Trowa looks so young. Trowa is young. He was fifteen when he died.

“What happened?” Duo shifts closer, but slowly, as if any sudden movement will cause Trowa to disappear.”

“I slept at the train station, over night. I got — kicked out, sort of.” Trowa starts. He stops. He laughs, shortly. “It was stupid. I didn’t want to get caught so I slept under one of the trains.”

Heero couldn’t help the shudder than ran through him. He knew where that was going. Duo seemed to as well, but couldn’t stop himself from asking, “And then what?”

“My coat caught on the bottom of the train. I guess. It felt like it took forever.”

“Oh, oh god, fuck — “ Duo springs up, takes the two steps between them and flings himself at Trowa. They collide, and Heero wonders how Trowa can be dead, be a ghost, if he can catch Duo and hold him and rock him back and forth and whisper apologies into his hair. “Tro’ — I didn’t, I was so fucking angry with you and you were getting dragged to God knows where fuck I probably — I was probably cursing you when you were bleeding out somewhere oh fuck, shit, I’m sorry I — “ Duo kept babbling. Trowa kept holding him.

Heero cautiously kneels beside them and rubs at Duo’s back. Trowa extracts an arm that’s circling Duo and grab’s Heero’s wrist. He tugs Heero closer, so he’s holding Duo too. Trowa gives Heero a look, it’s the same look he gave him when he asked Heero to look after Duo. Heero can only nod.

“A sheep farmer,” Trowa starts again, after a few minutes, “Found my body and buried he. He didn’t — call anyone because he was afraid he would get accused of murder. My engagement ring,” a small, small smile, “Fell off just outside of Euston and got washed into the gutter, someone must have found it and tried to resell it.”

“I don’t want to let go again,” Duo rasps, it sounds like he’s dying. Heero holds him a little tighter.

“I can’t — I can only even touch you for so long, and then not again for — some time, even if I stay. Please don’t — ask me to stay.” Trowa has a wide eyed look that Heero recognizes as fear, but he doesn’t understand why. Not wanting to watch Duo when he couldn’t interact was grief, but fear. . . “Please.” Trowa adds.

“Funeral,” Duo mutters, “We’ll — oh God, does Cathy know?” Trowa shakes his head, no. “I — a funeral, Tro’. We have to, I — you need to make sure you say goodbye to me this time.”

“Why do you think I want you to find my body?”

Something in Heero breaks again, like when he found out Trowa was dead. He lets one hand slide along Duo’s side so he can grab onto the worn fabric of Trowa’s coat. The three of them stay like that until Trowa says he can’t stay and fades from sight.

Duo doesn’t cry this time, but he does fist his hands in Heero’s shirt.

—

Heero finds out that the woman he stayed with in France was Trowa’s sister. Her name is Catherine. She comes for the funeral — she’s the only family member who does. Duo had invited Trowa’s parents, because he said they deserved to know, but he also didn’t expect them to show up.

it’s a private, small funeral. Catherine hugs Duo fiercely, she says that Trowa’s favorite flower was baby’s breath and he always had rotten taste like that. Duo laughs weakly. They rebury Trowa in Borth, Wales. Duo owns a small cabin there and he says that when they were teenagers Trowa had fallen in love with the small village.

After Catherine returns to her hotel room they wait for Trowa to show. He’s not solid, this time and there’s a tiredness to his face that Heero hasn’t seen before. Duo’s hand moves through Trowa’s, even though they try to twine fingers.

“I’m sorry,” Trowa says again.

“Oh, shut up. We would have been a terrible married couple,” Duo jokes. “Cathy is right, your taste _is_ awful.”

“Heero — thank you.” Trowa nods, stiffly and then, “Duo, I’ve always loved you. I — goodbye.”

“ ‘Bye, Tro’. Keep me a seat warm in Heaven.”

“No way,” Trowa smirks, even though his lower lip trembles a little, “I’m not going to hold my breath for you. When you die you better be old enough that all of heaven thinks you’re a pervert.”

“That’s not how it works, jerk.”

“Shouldn’t you have made a jailbait joke?” Heero asks, softly, interjecting when he isn’t sure if he’s welcome — but both Trowa and Duo laugh. They laugh a little too long and Duo wipes tears from his eyes.

“Fuck, sometimes your taste isn’t _too_ bad. I — that was you, wasn’t it, when I was eighteen?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t — like I said. You better be really old, when you die.” Trowa’s smile grows a little brighter, because Heero has set the anklet on a pile of tinder.

“Ready?” He asks.

“Yeah,” Trowa says immediately. Duo hesitates but then nods.

“Ready.”

Heero lights it, blows on the small bundle. Soon the anklet catches fire.

“I love you. Fuck, I love you so much,” Duo rambles, he repeats it over and over.

“Goodbye, Heero.” Trowa’s voice fades. “Goodbye, Duo.”

Then he’s gone.

—

Duo keeps the house in Borth, but he makes plans to travel again — but on the gambling circuit. He’ll try his hand at poker, professional poker. He jokes that he’ll at least become a t.v. sensation, because ESPN will love him. Heero agrees.

“I can’t do what he asked,” Heero says, when they part ways.

“I know, I don’t know why he thought you could,” Duo laughs, “But Tro’ — he was always a hopeless romantic.”

“I wanted to love him.” Heero has to confess. He doesn’t think it’s right for Duo not to know.

“You did love him, probably. He’s pretty easy to love,” Duo isn’t bothered at all. “The sex was great, Heero.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t bad.” Heero agrees.

“We could do it again, sometime.” Duo’s shrug is fluid, but there’s a longing in his face. Heero’s breath catches and he thinks about the curve of Duo’s neck when he throws back his head.

“Sometime,” he says.

“Keep in touch.” Duo orders, pats Heero on the shoulder. “The house here will be open, I made an extra key for you.”

Heero accepts it, not sure he has a parting gift to give back. Duo notices his look and laughs.

“You gave me a gift, Heero. I don’t think I can ever repay you for that.”

“I was looking after myself,” Heero protests, “I was — looking for myself. Soul-searching.”

“And you found Tro’. It’s enough for me. Look, that’s my ride, don’t be a stranger.” Duo hefts the suitcase and heads for the cab. He turns at the last moment to blow Heero a kiss, to wave, and then he ducks into the taxi.

Heero palms the key and then slides it onto his keyring. First, he’ll go back to London, see Relena. Then he’ll look for jobs in Wales. . .


End file.
